The Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg, an activist for climate change, and the movement build up from the ranks of secondary school pupils and students Fridays for Future, have been given the 2019 Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience award, the human rights organisation announced on Friday.

Created in 2002, the Ambassador of Conscience award rewards those who, individually or collectively, “have advanced the cause of human rights by following their conscience, standing up to injustice and making use of their talents to encourage others to act,” Amnesty International explained.

The Fridays for Future movement was launched by Greta Thunberg, a Swedish teenager who decided in August 2018 to ditch school every Friday to protest in front of the Swedish Parliament until it took strong measures to combat climate disruption. Her initiative to make people aware of the climate crisis spread like wildfire. On May 24, more than a million young people throughout the world took part in a day of school strikes in support of Fridays for Future. Demonstrations took place in over 100 countries.

Amnesty International is inviting states to strengthen significantly the measures being taken in support of the climate, while respecting human rights.

That's nothing - there will no doubt calls for Theresa May to be sanctified (probably by the German and Chinese coal merchants, who will be laughing all the way to the bank.)

‘Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs and literary traditions. They neither intermarry nor eat together, and indeed they belong to two different civilisations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions.’ Muhammad Ali Jinnah

New Study Finds a Modest Carbon Tax Would Hurt All Humanity for Two Generations

One of the main themes of my writings on climate change at IER has been warning the public that the “consensus science” they are hearing from the media, pundits, and certain political figures is utterly divorced from the actual published literature, especially when it comes to the economic analysis of government policy. A new, cutting edge working paper from some big-name economists — including Laurence Kotlikoff and Jeffrey Sachs — confirms my point.

In this case, here is the shocking fact that their paper tries to grapple with: Even with a relatively modest carbon tax, the rise in energy prices is so painful that it swamps the benefits of slower climate change, and this is true for our kids and grandkids. It is only when we get to our great-grandchildren that humanity on net would start to actually benefit from even a modest carbon tax introduced today. So the next time you hear someone say, “We need to take vigorous action on the climate for future generations!” you can clarify, “Actually, your proposals would hurt the next two future generations. You want to hurt us, our kids, and our grandkids, in order to help our great-grandkids and beyond — who will all be fantastically rich compared to us, by the way.”

The Kotlikoff et al. paper is quite technical, so I’ll just summarize the take-away points for a lay audience. I will also spend time at the end of the article explaining what their proposed solution is, for this thorny problem. To avoid confusion, I want to be clear: The authors of this new paper are for a (modest) carbon tax. But they are warning that the current discussion, even among economists, tends to look at “what’s best for humanity from now until the end of time,” rather than checking to make sure each generation gains from a new climate policy. As we’ll see, Kotlikoff et al. suggest a massive fiscal transfer that allows present generations to run up a huge (additional) government debt that our descendants must then effectively pay back with higher taxes, in order to compensate their forebears for suffering through higher energy prices due to a carbon tax.

The point of my article isn’t to endorse the overall recommendation of Kotlikoff et al.; along with climate scientists at Cato, I’ve published a comprehensive critique of the usual economist’s case for a carbon tax. Rather, by shining a spotlight on the cutting edge in the development of the literature on carbon taxation, I want readers to see just how detached the actual discussion among experts is from the breezy claims about “we have 12 years left to save our children” that we hear from pundits and political officials.

How An “Optimal” Carbon Tax Can Punish Into the Third GenerationTo set the stage for my interpretation, let’s first quote from the authors’ own description of their results. (Note, readers who don’t have access through the NBER link above can also see a version of the paper posted at Kotlikoff’s website.) The title of the paper is, “MAKING CARBON TAXATION A GENERATIONAL WIN WIN.” Here’s an excerpt from the Abstract:

Carbon taxation has been studied primarily in social planner or infinitely lived agent models, which trade off the welfare of future and current generations.Such frameworks obscure the potential for carbon taxation to produce a generational win-win. This paper develops a large-scale, dynamic 55-period, OLG [Overlapping Generations — rpm] model to calculate the carbon tax policy delivering the highest uniform welfare gain to all generations. The OLG framework, with its selfish generations, seems far more natural for studying climate damage. Our model features coal, oil, and gas, each extracted subject to increasing costs, a clean energy sector, technical and demographic change, and Nordhaus (2017)’s temperature/damage functions. Our model’s optimal uniform welfare increasing (UWI) carbon tax starts at $30 tax, rises annually at 1.5 percent and raises the welfare of all current and future generations by 0.73 percent on a consumption-equivalent basis. Sharing efficiency gains evenly requires, however, taxing future generations by as much as 8.1 percent and subsidizing early generations by as much as 1.2 percent of lifetime consumption. Without such redistribution (the Nordhaus “optimum”), the carbon tax constitutes a win-lose policy with current generations experiencing an up to 0.84 percent welfare loss and future generations experiencing an up to 7.54 percent welfare gain. [Kotlikoff et al., bold added.]

Although I realize this is difficult technical language for the layperson to parse, here’s what the authors are saying: If we take the “gold standard” (their term later on) in this literature and use Nordhaus’s 2017 model calibration, it will recommend an “optimal carbon tax” that correctly — according to standard economic theory and the best estimates from the climate science research — balances the tradeoff between reducing emissions and harming economic growth.

However — and this is a huge caveat — Nordhaus’s approach assumes there is a benevolent, overarching “social planner” who lumps all of humanity together, and only makes a technical allowance for a (modest) discount on the happiness of future generations in accordance with standard economic theory.

In practice, the authors point out, Nordhaus’s “optimal carbon tax” would actually mean that people living or born today and in the near future will be harmed on net by the policy, because they will suffer worse economic harm from higher energy prices, than they will be spared in climate change damages from reduced emissions. It’s only when we get several generations into the future, that Nordhaus’s “optimal carbon tax” actually starts making human beings better off, compared to the status quo.

This is a critical point for Americans to realize. They are constantly being hectored that if they “cared for their children” they would support a large carbon tax and other aggressive interventions. But we see that this isn’t true: If we even adopt a modest carbon tax — one that still allows 4 degrees Celsius warming (over twice the 1.5 degree currently touted by climate activists as the necessary target), according to the authors (p. 22)1 — then we are harming ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren, relative to the “do nothing” baseline. It’s only our great-grandchildren, who (on average) are going to be fantastically wealthy compared to us, who will actually start reaping net benefits from even this modest reduction in the path of emissions.

The SpecificsThe general point of this new paper has been made before; I myself have frequently pointed out to audiences that the entire climate change approach involves making relatively poor people (i.e., us) even poorer, in order to shower benefits on relatively rich people (i.e. future generations). However, the benefit of the Kotlikoff et al. paper is that they quantify exactly how much each generation wins or loses under the latest Nordhaus calibration, by taking his (Nobel-Prize winning) model and changing as little as possible to make their calculations. Furthermore, since Jeffrey Sachs (one of the co-authors) is a prominent proponent of “action against climate change,” the skeptical outsider can be reassured that these results are genuine and not the result of bias or disinformation.

I remember sitting listening to the radio many years ago. Someone was explaining the jobs of political advisers. It went something like this:Politicians need information and advice, so they order an investigation.The researchers set to work, and produce a report equivalent to a Ph.D. thesis.This is too much for the politicians to digest,so the researchers reduce it to the equivalent of an academic paper.This is too much for the politicians to digest, so the advisers condense it to one side of A4 paper.This takes too long for the politicians to read, so the advisers condense it onto the back of a postcard.The politicians read it and act upon it.

Thus are our laws made.

‘Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs and literary traditions. They neither intermarry nor eat together, and indeed they belong to two different civilisations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions.’ Muhammad Ali Jinnah

While on holiday in Western Canada last month I had what you might call my first personal brush with climate change.

A day after we left accommodation on the coast of British Columbia, the village we had stayed in was placed under evacuation alert. A wildfire had started just above it, leading to the evacuation warning and the closure of the only road serving that portion of the coast. The area had been remarkably dry and dusty, to the obvious concern of locals.

Further confirmation of global warning has been the inexorable increase in wildfires across the province in recent years. And while we hadn’t actually been there for the fire, it was unsettling, and a reminder that the planet, which is warming due to human activity, is progressively becoming less livable.

What does medical research tell us about mental-health issues arising from the ongoing wave of bad climate-change news?

Poor air quality increases asthma and allergy attacks and can cause other respiratory problems leading to hospitalizationThe World Health Organisation has predicted some 250,000 deaths per year between 2030 and 2050 due to climate change. And the UN has predicted that the average 4 degree Celsius rise in temperature by the end of the century means sea levels would rise enough to drown coastal cities, and crop yields would decline precipitously.

Direct traumatic experiences such as losing a home to a hurricane have mental-health consequences. After Hurricane Katrina hit the US Gulf Coast in 2005, suicide and suicidal ideation among residents of areas affected by the disaster more than doubled, while one in six met the criteria for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Rates of depression also doubled in New Orleans, with a disproportionate impact on the mental health of those with the lowest incomes. Elevated PTSD levels have also been found among people who live through wildfires and severe storms.

Less acute exposure can have still some effect. In 2017, the American Psychological Association validated “ecoanxiety” as a legitimate affliction. “Some of the most resounding chronic psychological consequences” of climate change will stem from slower-moving disasters, like the “unrelenting day-by-day despair” of a prolonged drought, the APA said. “Gradual, long-term changes in climate can also surface a number of different emotions, including fear, anger, feelings of powerlessness, or exhaustion.”

Spread of bacteriaThere is no denying that global warming causes increases in heat waves, humidity, and air pollution, and increases rainfall – leading to flooding and mudslides. Extreme heat can cause heat-related illness and death from heat stroke and dehydration. Poor air quality increases asthma and allergy attacks and can cause other respiratory problems leading to hospitalization. A rise in temperature can also extend the geographic range of disease-carrying mosquitos and ticks, resulting in faster and wider spread of a variety of diseases.

Rising temperatures and extreme weather conditions make it easier for food and water to become contaminated by bacteria, viruses, parasites, and other toxins. Heavy downpours and flooding can spread bacteria from animal and human faeces into waterways and fields where crops are growing.

A nebulous ecoanxiety may be harder to deal with than facing the harsh reality of climate changeSpeaking to the annual meeting of the Irish Medical Organisation earlier this year, Dr Ina Kelly, Consultant in Public Health Medicine in HSE Midlands, emphasised the particular vulnerability of Ireland to climate-induced waterborne disease.

“We have very significant vulnerabilities to climate change: for example, our susceptibility to serious waterborne disease from severe rainfall events is very high, with 170,000 private wells around the country providing untreated and sometimes contaminated drinking water; drought can also have a huge effect on farmers, who themselves are under pressure to consider the impacts of cattle density and the subsequent effect that has on our carbon emissions and on water contamination,” she said.

It’s strange, but reflecting back on our brush with climate-change reality, it was easier to cope with than the everyday sense of despair that pervades the overall narrative.

A nebulous ecoanxiety may be harder to deal with than facing the harsh reality of climate change.

Less acute exposure can have still some effect. In 2017, the American Psychological Association validated “ecoanxiety” as a legitimate affliction.

Like the way that Trumpanxiety induces Trump Derangement Syndrome in people with less acute exposure to Trump - such as UK politicians and journalists.

‘Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs and literary traditions. They neither intermarry nor eat together, and indeed they belong to two different civilisations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions.’ Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Greta Thunberg has shrugged off criticism from French lawmakers who mocked her speech to parliament.The 16-year-old climate activist received insults from conservative and far-right MPs ahead of her address yesterday. Two leading MPs for the conservative Les Republicains party called the Swedish teenager a "guru of the apocalypse". Greta Thunberg said it was fine they ignored her, but urged them to “unite” behind the science of climate change.

The Norwegian research vessel and icebreaker Kronprins Haakon (Crown Prince Haakon) was forced to turn back north of Svalbard after meeting considerably thicker ice than expected.

Thick one-year ice combined with large batches of multi-year ice have merged to form powerful helmets, and several of these are impenetrable to us, said Captain Johnny Peder Hansen.

The ice is still 3m (10ft) thick, in mid-July! Even the researchers’ long special-purpose chainsaws proved hopeless, while the 20,000 horsepower Kronprins Haakon, at a cost of USD $175 million, failed miserably at attempts to push through.

“In the middle of July, we saw a few signs of thawing and [assumed] that spring had come, said Captain Hansen, who for several decades has worked on various vessels in the Arctic. “We had expected more melting.”

Klassekampen, a respected left-leaning Norwegian newspaper writes: “Polar bears were seen on Bjørnøya this past winter –located in the middle of the Barents Sea– which shows that the ice edge was very far south.”

“Winter conditions have changed,” concludes the paper.

The cold times have returned, in line with historically low solar output:

Yesterday I posted a photo wearing a borrowed T-shirt that says I’m against fascism. That T-shirt can apparently to some be linked to a violent movement. I don’t support any form of violence and to avoid misunderstandings I’ve deleted the post. And of course I am against fascism.

Climate activist Greta Thunberg urges Swedish trade unions to strike for the climate. But the union’s message is that they will not announce a strike – instead, they want to hold talks.

“It is the job of the unions to secure workers’ rights and security and a crisis like this one will accompany major economic changes, and problems, if we do not adjust. Therefore, trade unions should urge politicians to act immediately in the climate crisis”, Greta Thunberg and the Fridays for Future movement write in a debate article in Aftonbladet.

But the unions that TT has talked to will not announce a strike among its members.

It is unusual to strike to influence the more general political issues, which do not specifically concern labor rights.

“LO (The Worker’s Union) does not, as a rule, use the strike weapon for pressure on various political issues, however important and urgent they are, and we do not think that a closure would bring us closer to a solution to the climate issue,” LO’s second vice-chairman Berit Müllerström replies in an email.

LO will instead have a dialogue with Fridays for future about how Swedish trade union movement can contribute to the climate change. “Such a dialogue will start immediately this fall,” says Berit Müllerström.

A similar message is given by the Swedish Academic Association, Saco: “Climate and environmental issues are important for Saco’s members. The strike weapon is not used for general political pressure, but only in conflicts that affect the social partners. Saco continuously meets industry, organizations and politicians for talks,” Saco writes in an email.

The Union of Nature scientists say they are “deeply involved in the climate issue and the issues of sustainability and the environment”, but they will not participate in any strike, by reference to the duty of peace.

“The reason is simple: Because of the duty of peace that prevails in the Swedish labor market, we cannot participate – or invite members to participate – in any kind of strike. This includes the climate strike on September 27,” says Jonas Ahlgren, Head of Communications.

Yesterday I posted a photo wearing a borrowed T-shirt that says I’m against fascism. That T-shirt can apparently to some be linked to a violent movement. I don’t support any form of violence and to avoid misunderstandings I’ve deleted the post. And of course I am against fascism.

Oke...Right..Do you mind if I do not believe you?

Well and truly caught showing her true colours: Watermelon green with red on the inside.BTW wasn't somebody prominent recently hounded for simply being photographed with someone wearing a politically incorrect shirt in the same frame?

‘Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs and literary traditions. They neither intermarry nor eat together, and indeed they belong to two different civilisations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions.’ Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Fernando wrote:Well and truly caught showing her true colours: Watermelon green with red on the inside.BTW wasn't somebody prominent recently hounded for simply being photographed with someone wearing a politically incorrect shirt in the same frame?

I bet they realised they made a big mistake. Her mom now says she was the one who borrowed her that shirt. And she also did not know the meaning of this logo.

The Swedish climate oracle, Greta Thunberg, has recorded a song together with the band The 1975. In a tweet she promises that all revenue from the recording will go to the extreme-left environmental organisation, Extinction Rebellion.

In April, the fundamentalist environmentalists caused trouble on the streets of London. Moreover, its Swedish Antifa-supporting key person was sentenced to four years in prison for the Gothenburg riots in 2001.

It all started a few days ago when Greta Thunberg wore a left-wing supporting T-shirt, which caused noise all over Sweden. Now, the alternative news site Samhällsnytt has dug a little deeper to find out more about why Greta Thunberg was posing in her T-shirt, which is a copy of the Converse All Stars logo, except from the text which says “Antifascist All Stars”.

It turns out that together with the band The 1975, Greta Thunberg is preaching the end of the world, in which she is stating that all solutions to the climate crisis have failed.

Tweeting money for Extinction RebellionAfter recording of the song, Greta Thunberg tweeted: “New track from the @the1975 out today and I’m in it! So happy to collaborate with these great people. All our income from this track titled The 1975 – which will be the opening track on their upcoming album – will go to #ExtincionRebellion Time to Rebel!”

The environmental activist group Extinction Rebellion made chaos worldwide, particularly on the streets of London this spring, and launched a second attempt in June to make the capital close down its most important functions.

The group also plans to shut down Heathrow airport this fall, with the help of disturbing drones.

Swedish front figure convicted for riotsThe Swedish section of Extinction Rebellion is led by left-wing activist, Jonathan Pye, who participated in the 2001 Gothenburg riots, when the down-town city became a battle-field after left-wing extremists protested against the visit of former US President George W Bush during the EU summit in the city.

Jonathan Pye was sentenced to four years in prison after being one of the rioteers who threw bricks and stones at the Police and set restaurant furniture on fire at the prime street of Gothenburg, Kungsportsavenyn.

“Murder is not worth it”Back then, Pye was an active member of AFA, a Swedish Antifa section. He did not regret any of his doings, he told Sveriges Radio in 2006.

He confirmed that he consciously uses violence as a tool in the political fight. “If I commit acts of violence it is like a game of chess. Then I think coldly and tactically”, he said in the interview. He did not mind attacking police officers with bricks and stones either. Pye also stated that he could consider murder – if it would be convenient.“It would not be worth it for the time being, not by moral grounds, mainly practical”, Jonathan Pye said.

Greta Thunberg’s tweet is now erased, and so is the image of her wearing the left-wing supporting t-shirt, since neither she nor her mother said to have been aware of the extremist connections.

So St Greta and her mother now say that AntiFa are extremists. They've got something right, then,

‘Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs and literary traditions. They neither intermarry nor eat together, and indeed they belong to two different civilisations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions.’ Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Switzerland’s heatwave – made by greensIn the interests of unborn generations, policymakers are willing to let the living suffer.

ANDREA SEAMAN17th July 2019Switzerland’s heatwave – made by greensClimate change has recently made people suffer in Switzerland, with areas of Zurich reaching 45.2 degrees Celsius, and other parts of Switzerland 42.3 degrees. Some people have complained that they are struggling to work, while others have been reportedly close to collapsing in the heat. At the University Hospital Zurich, the 40-degree heat has made patients’ lives a misery, stopping many from sleeping despite their being given sedatives. Some patients with dementia reportedly stripped naked to cool down.

And yet the strange thing is that this summer the maximum outside temperature in Switzerland stands at 37 degrees Celsius, in a place called Sitten, which is on the other side of Switzerland to Zurich. So what’s going on?

The answer is climate-change prevention. The unbearable temperatures recorded in Switzerland this year all occurred on public transport and within hospital buildings and other workplaces.

In the interests of saving the planet from disaster, University Hospital Zurich (UHZ) has banned air-conditioner use, with the exception of operating theatres and other places in the hospital where cooling is vital. Staff were advised to cool the wards, waiting rooms and public areas by opening windows and doors, putting up screens, and by airing the hospital at night. A UHZ spokeswoman said that the high temperatures inside the hospital, which were at times 10 degrees higher than outside, are not a problem. The ‘sensation of heat’ is nothing but an ‘individual’ feeling, she said. One wonders if she feels the same insouciance towards global warming.

Explaining why fans were banned, a UHZ whistleblower said staff had been informed that it was not to combat global warming but to prevent turbulent air from spreading germs. Yet, as the whistleblower said, opening windows potentially creates a draft that is just as capable of carrying germs. He added that staff are now bringing their own fans and mobile air-conditioning units to work.

By any measure, the smouldering conditions in Zurich’s overheating hospitals is cruel towards patients, some of whom, according to staff, are on doctors’ orders not to drink too much water, and are therefore being given ice to suck on. Other patients are reportedly being made sicker by the heat because they are severely ill and have fragile circulatory systems. Little wonder that UHZ’s actions have caused public outrage.

This absurd situation begins to make sense – at least from the perspective of officialdom – when one considers that UHZ is committed to reducing its ‘energy requirements’ by two per cent per year. It is a plainly unsustainable policy, drawn up by greens who are more concerned about the fate of future generations than they are about the plight of people in the present

And what of the effect of green policies elsewhere? Our publicly owned national rail service (SBB), has decreed that in the interests of saving the earth from a fiery future, the use of air conditioners on trains needs to be restrained. A spokesperson for the SBB explained that the official policy for public transport is to keep carriages cooled to five degrees below the outside temperature. This was ‘reasonable and ecological’, he said, and in line with common practice in many countries ‘far hotter than Switzerland’.

One wonders, then, how a train from Meilen to Zurich (a distance of nine miles covered in 21 minutes) reached a carriage temperature eight degrees above this year’s national record temperature? Maybe the air conditioning was not working. My bet – based on personal experience of that very train – is that trying to cool a packed train during a heatwave to only five degrees below the outside temperature will not overcome the heat generated both by passengers and the sunlight streaming through the windows.

Besides, the SBB, regardless of the outside temperature, often leaves the air conditioning switched off on crowded intercity trains between Bern and Zurich. This is presumably part of its contribution to Switzerland’s Energy Strategy 2050, which set out to reduce per-person energy consumption by 43 per cent between 2000 and 2035.

In the interests of saving us from a warming climate, greens are happy to let us sizzle inside our hospitals and on public transport, the very means of transportation supposed to help us avoid the coming inferno. You couldn’t make it up.

If the Swiss experience is any guide, efforts to prevent climate change will make us far sweatier, hotter and sicker than climate change ever will.

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg will soon set sail on a solar-powered boat to attend a U.N. summit in New York. But when asked if she'd be open to meeting President Trump during her trip to America, Thunberg said it would be a "waste."

"Why should I waste time talking to him when he, of course, is not going to listen to me?" she said.

If she had to rate the United States' climate change efforts, Thunberg said America would rank "not very high." Thunberg wants all governments to cut emissions in line with the Paris climate accord, which President Trump has rejected. And currently, the U.S. emits more carbon than any country other than China.

Thunberg hopes to change that. The Swedish 16-year-old, described by some as the "voice of the planet," will be sailing from Europe to New York to call on world leaders to protect the environment. The journey could take two weeks — but Thunberg said she doesn't fly because of the environmental impact of air travel.

But although she leads a global youth movement and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, Thunberg said she doesn't like all the attention.

"I am very, very introvert[ed] and shy, privately," she said.

Thunberg said having autism gives her the focus and determination to act. Her activism began with a solitary strike outside of Sweden's parliament last year — but now, she's far from alone. Her sisters, Sarah and Katie O'Callaghan, have skipped school to join her on weekly strikes.

"Since we started the school striking, we became vegetarian," Sarah said. "We don't eat dairy."

"We don't take the car as much," the girls added. "We cycle to school and take the train."

Critics dismiss Thunberg as alarmist, too young, and inexperienced. But she says her climate crusade must go on if her generation is to have a future.